Round the Moon

Chapter XVIII

Grave Questions

But the projectile had passed the enceinte of
Tycho, and Barbicane and his two companions watched with scrupulous
attention the brilliant rays which the celebrated mountain shed so
curiously over the horizon.

What was this radiant glory? What geological phenomenon had designed
these ardent beams? This question occupied Barbicane’s mind.

Under his eyes ran in all directions luminous furrows, raised at the
edges and concave in the center, some twelve miles, others thirty miles
broad. These brilliant trains extended in some places to within 600 miles
of Tycho, and seemed to cover, particularly toward the east, the
northeast and the north, the half of the southern hemisphere. One of
these jets extended as far as the circle of Neander, situated on the 40th
meridian. Another, by a slight curve, furrowed the “Sea of Nectar,”
breaking against the chain of Pyrenees, after a circuit of 800 miles.
Others, toward the west, covered the “Sea of Clouds” and the “Sea of
Humors” with a luminous network. What was the origin of these sparkling
rays, which shone on the plains as well as on the reliefs, at whatever
height they might be? All started from a common center, the crater of
Tycho. They sprang from him. Herschel attributed their brilliancy to
currents of lava congealed by the cold; an opinion, however, which has
not been generally adopted. Other astronomers have seen in these
inexplicable rays a kind of moraines, rows of erratic blocks, which had
been thrown up at the period of Tycho’s formation.

“And why not?” asked Nicholl of Barbicane, who was relating and rejecting
these different opinions.

“Because the regularity of these luminous lines, and the violence
necessary to carry volcanic matter to such distances, is inexplicable.”

“Eh! by Jove!” replied Michel Ardan, “it seems easy enough to me to
explain the origin of these rays.”

“Indeed?” said Barbicane.

“Indeed,” continued Michel. “It is enough to say that it is a vast star,
similar to that produced by a ball or a stone thrown at a square of
glass!”

“Well!” replied Barbicane, smiling. “And what hand would be powerful
enough to throw a ball to give such a shock as that?”

“The hand is not necessary,” answered Nicholl, not at all confounded;
“and as to the stone, let us suppose it to be a comet.”

“Ah! those much-abused comets!” exclaimed Barbicane. “My brave Michel,
your explanation is not bad; but your comet is useless. The shock which
produced that rent must have some from the inside of the star. A violent
contraction of the lunar crust, while cooling, might suffice to imprint
this gigantic star.”

“A contraction! something like a lunar stomach-ache.” said Michel Ardan.

“Besides,” added Barbicane, “this opinion is that of an English savant,
Nasmyth, and it seems to me to sufficiently explain the radiation of
these mountains.”

“That Nasmyth was no fool!” replied Michel.

Long did the travelers, whom such a sight could never weary, admire the
splendors of Tycho. Their projectile, saturated with luminous gleams in
the double irradiation of sun and moon, must have appeared like an
incandescent globe. They had passed suddenly from excessive cold to
intense heat. Nature was thus preparing them to become Selenites. Become
Selenites! That idea brought up once more the question of the
habitability of the moon. After what they had seen, could the travelers
solve it? Would they decide for or against it? Michel Ardan persuaded his
two friends to form an opinion, and asked them directly if they thought
that men and animals were represented in the lunar world.

“I think that we can answer,” said Barbicane; “but according to my idea
the question ought not to be put in that form. I ask it to be put
differently.”

“Put it your own way,” replied Michel.

“Here it is,” continued Barbicane. “The problem is a double one, and
requires a double solution. Is the moon habitable? Has the moon
ever been inhabitable?”

“Good!” replied Nicholl. “First let us see whether the moon is
habitable.”

“To tell the truth, I know nothing about it,” answered Michel.

“And I answer in the negative,” continued Barbicane. “In her actual
state, with her surrounding atmosphere certainly very much reduced, her
seas for the most part dried up, her insufficient supply of water
restricted, vegetation, sudden alternations of cold and heat, her days
and nights of 354 hours—the moon does not seem habitable to me, nor does
she seem propitious to animal development, nor sufficient for the wants
of existence as we understand it.”

“Agreed,” replied Nicholl. “But is not the moon habitable for creatures
differently organized from ourselves?”

“That question is more difficult to answer, but I will try; and I ask
Nicholl if motion appears to him to be a necessary result of
life, whatever be its organization?”

“Without a doubt!” answered Nicholl.

“Then, my worthy companion, I would answer that we have observed the
lunar continent at a distance of 500 yards at most, and that nothing
seemed to us to move on the moon’s surface. The presence of any kind of
life would have been betrayed by its attendant marks, such as divers
buildings, and even by ruins. And what have we seen? Everywhere and
always the geological works of nature, never the work of man. If, then,
there exist representatives of the animal kingdom on the moon, they must
have fled to those unfathomable cavities which the eye cannot reach;
which I cannot admit, for they must have left traces of their passage on
those plains which the atmosphere must cover, however slightly raised it
may be. These traces are nowhere visible. There remains but one
hypothesis, that of a living race to which motion, which is life, is
foreign.”

“One might as well say, living creatures which do not live,” replied
Michel.

“Just so,” said Barbicane, “which for us has no meaning.”

“Then we may form our opinion?” said Michel.

“Yes,” replied Nicholl.

“Very well,” continued Michel Ardan, “the Scientific Commission assembled
in the projectile of the Gun Club, after having founded their argument on
facts recently observed, decide unanimously upon the question of the
habitability of the moon— ‘No! the moon is not habitable.’”

This decision was consigned by President Barbicane to his notebook, where
the process of the sitting of the 6th of December may be seen.

“Now,” said Nicholl, “let us attack the second question, an indispensable
complement of the first. I ask the honorable commission, if the moon is
not habitable, has she ever been inhabited, Citizen Barbicane?”

“My friends,” replied Barbicane, “I did not undertake this journey in
order to form an opinion on the past habitability of our satellite; but I
will add that our personal observations only confirm me in this opinion.
I believe, indeed I affirm, that the moon has been inhabited by a human
race organized like our own; that she has produced animals anatomically
formed like the terrestrial animals: but I add that these races, human
and animal, have had their day, and are now forever extinct!”

“Then,” asked Michel, “the moon must be older than the earth?”

“No!” said Barbicane decidedly, “but a world which has grown old quicker,
and whose formation and deformation have been more rapid. Relatively, the
organizing force of matter has been much more violent in the interior of
the moon than in the interior of the terrestrial globe. The actual state
of this cracked, twisted, and burst disc abundantly proves this. The moon
and the earth were nothing but gaseous masses originally. These gases
have passed into a liquid state under different influences, and the solid
masses have been formed later. But most certainly our sphere was still
gaseous or liquid, when the moon was solidified by cooling, and had
become habitable.”

“I believe it,” said Nicholl.

“Then,” continued Barbicane, “an atmosphere surrounded it, the waters
contained within this gaseous envelope could not evaporate. Under the
influence of air, water, light, solar heat, and central heat, vegetation
took possession of the continents prepared to receive it, and certainly
life showed itself about this period, for nature does not expend herself
in vain; and a world so wonderfully formed for habitation must
necessarily be inhabited.”

“But,” said Nicholl, “many phenomena inherent in our satellite might
cramp the expansion of the animal and vegetable kingdom. For example, its
days and nights of 354 hours?”

“At the terrestrial poles they last six months,” said Michel.

“An argument of little value, since the poles are not inhabited.”

“Let us observe, my friends,” continued Barbicane, “that if in the actual
state of the moon its long nights and long days created differences of
temperature insupportable to organization, it was not so at the
historical period of time. The atmosphere enveloped the disc with a fluid
mantle; vapor deposited itself in the shape of clouds; this natural
screen tempered the ardor of the solar rays, and retained the nocturnal
radiation. Light, like heat, can diffuse itself in the air; hence an
equality between the influences which no longer exists, now that
atmosphere has almost entirely disappeared. And now I am going to
astonish you.”

“Astonish us?” said Michel Ardan.

“I firmly believe that at the period when the moon was inhabited, the
nights and days did not last 354 hours!”

“And why?” asked Nicholl quickly.

“Because most probably then the rotary motion of the moon upon her axis
was not equal to her revolution, an equality which presents each part of
her disc during fifteen days to the action of the solar rays.”

“Granted,” replied Nicholl, “but why should not these two motions have
been equal, as they are really so?”

“Because that equality has only been determined by terrestrial
attraction. And who can say that this attraction was powerful enough to
alter the motion of the moon at that period when the earth was still
fluid?”

“Just so,” replied Nicholl; “and who can say that the moon has always
been a satellite of the earth?”

“And who can say,” exclaimed Michel Ardan, “that the moon did not exist
before the earth?”

Their imaginations carried them away into an indefinite field of
hypothesis. Barbicane sought to restrain them.

“Those speculations are too high,” said he; “problems utterly insoluble.
Do not let us enter upon them. Let us only admit the insufficiency of the
primordial attraction; and then by the inequality of the two motions of
rotation and revolution, the days and nights could have succeeded each
other on the moon as they succeed each other on the earth. Besides, even
without these conditions, life was possible.”

“Yes,” replied Barbicane, “after having doubtless remained persistently
for millions of centuries; by degrees the atmosphere becoming rarefied,
the disc became uninhabitable, as the terrestrial globe will one day
become by cooling.”

“By cooling?”

“Certainly,” replied Barbicane; “as the internal fires became
extinguished, and the incandescent matter concentrated itself, the lunar
crust cooled. By degrees the consequences of these phenomena showed
themselves in the disappearance of organized beings, and by the
disappearance of vegetation. Soon the atmosphere was rarefied, probably
withdrawn by terrestrial attraction; then aerial departure of respirable
air, and disappearance of water by means of evaporation. At this period
the moon becoming uninhabitable, was no longer inhabited. It was a dead
world, such as we see it to-day.”

“And you say that the same fate is in store for the earth?”

“Most probably.”

“But when?”

“When the cooling of its crust shall have made it uninhabitable.”

“And have they calculated the time which our unfortunate sphere will take
to cool?”

“Very well, my good Michel,” replied Barbicane quietly; “we know what
diminution of temperature the earth undergoes in the lapse of a century.
And according to certain calculations, this mean temperature will after a
period of 400,000 years, be brought down to zero!”

“Four hundred thousand years!” exclaimed Michel. “Ah! I breathe again.
Really I was frightened to hear you; I imagined that we had not more than
50,000 years to live.”

Barbicane and Nicholl could not help laughing at their companion’s
uneasiness. Then Nicholl, who wished to end the discussion, put the
second question, which had just been considered again.

“Has the moon been inhabited?” he asked.

The answer was unanimously in the affirmative. But during this
discussion, fruitful in somewhat hazardous theories, the projectile was
rapidly leaving the moon: the lineaments faded away from the travelers’
eyes, mountains were confused in the distance; and of all the wonderful,
strange, and fantastical form of the earth’s satellite, there soon
remained nothing but the imperishable remembrance.